Rating: 
Summary: Sorry You're Mad At Daddy, But...
Review: An absolute pile of nonsense. Hodel's case is marked by circumstantial evidence, hearsay, absurd leaps of logic and a "because I said so" attitude towards the reader. I tried to approach this book with an open mind but what really killed Hodel's theory for me was the reverse-logic of his assertions---basicall he starts with "MY FATHER KILLED THE BLACK DAHLIA" and works backward, trying desperately to squeeze the evidence to fit his claim that his dad committed the most famous murder in L.A. history. Let's tick off his points of "evidence"---
-much of Hodel's claim is based on the fact that his Dad "knew" Beth Short. This is arguable, but let's say that he did; the fact is that Beth Short wasn't some sort of ivory-tower socialite who had a tiny list of associates. Beth Short had dozens of male acquaintances; she was a party girl (though not a prostitute) who came into contact with many men in her brief stay in Hollywood so to say that the fact that George Hodel "knew" Beth Short is about as significant as saying that the sun came up today. His "knowing" Short makes him as much a suspect as several dozen other men whom she'd met in passing.
-the Man Ray connection; Hodel's assertion that the Man Ray "minotaur" photograph is somehow evidence that links his Dad to the killing of Beth Short (her body was posed in a similar fashion to the figure in the photo) is both preposterous (the leap of logic in this theory defies any analysis) and insulting to the memory of a great artist. The insination that Ray participated in grotesque sexual escapades in the Hodel residence is another ghastly claim, completely unsubstatiated.
-the notion that Short was killed by a surgeon; Hodel had some medical knowledge but was not a practicing surgeon. Even so, there's nothing here that specifically implicates Hodel or connects him to her murder. It would be just as easy to accuse the scores of practicing surgeons then practicing in LA county in 1947.
-the photographs. The woman (or women) does not look like Beth Short, not by any stretch of the imagination. Hodel harps on these images ad nauseum but a child could tell you that they don't bear any resemblance to Short.
-the handwriting samples. Debunked. And furthermore many of the alleged pieces of evidence have been dismissed as crank confessions.
-Hodel Senior's alleged "confessions" caught on tape: the only context (and Steve Hodel refuses to entertain any other) is the author's and even a casual consideration of Hodel Snr's words display am ambiguity over their meaning. What might be a "confession" is more likely a ego-driven boast that Hodel COULD get away with murder due to his social standing and wealth. Dastardly and despicable but hardly "proof" that Hodel ever murdered anyone.
It's unfortunate that Steve Hodel's flaky, shaky thesis has received so much ink (not to mention book sales). The fact that he was lucky enough to get on a major publisher has legitimized what are extremely dubious claims that his father committed such a ghastly murder. It's not much different than the case of Janice Knowlton whose ludicrous "Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer" makes a similar assertion. Perhaps it's a testament to the enduring allure of the Black Dahlia murder case that decades later people like Hodel, Knowlton and James Ellroy are still projected their own private demons onto the murder of Elizabeth Short. At least Ellroy had the decency to keep his fantasies in the realm of fiction.
Again, the most problematic aspect of this book is Hodel's refusal to critically examine his "evidence", to entertain the possibility that these disparate fragments of half-baked assertions don't add up to his notion that his Dad was the Black Dahlia murderer. Had he at least tested of the logic of his allegations his book would have made a much more compelling case, but Hodel is a man obsessed. Working backwards from the idea that his dad did it what's offered is a shoddy and unconvincing pile of half-truths, vague recollections and silly leaps of logic.
Sorry you had a rough childhood, Mr.Hodel. Your father has much to answer for. It still doesn't prove that he was the murderer of the Black Dahlia.
Rating: 
Summary: Controversial, Compelling...Incomplete
Review: Any reader new to BlackDahliaWorld -- a place in which ad hominem attacks on writers substitute themselves for book reviews, and a place in which an author's intimate connection to the Dahlia murder is, apparently, required -- will find many readers' reviews of Steve Hodel's book off-putting.
Potential Reader, don't be put off. This book is the best of the lot.
Anyone who's interested in the crime can spend a profitable weekend with Hodel and Gilmore's *Severed*, putting together a reasonably complete picture of the crime, its context, and (at least some of) the key players in the drama.
Hodel gets beaten about the head and neck by other reviewers for weak evidence, for having issues with his father, and for being a conspiracy nut, but a dispassionate reader who's familiar with the other currently-available books on this subject has to conclude, I think, that Hodel has the only credible suspect, if credibility is measured by primary, documentary evidence.
Is Hodel's case air-tight? No.
But Hodel's case does not depend on (a) speculation unsupported by any documentary evidence more robust that the size of two cut-out letters in an anonymous note, (b) recovered childhood memories of the author or (c) the (almost) confession of a now-dead criminal, as do the other major contenders in the genre.
In Hodel's book, an interested reader finds evidence, in the logical and legal senses of that word, as well as conjecture, supposition, special pleading and (yes, indeed) over-the-top rhetorical posturing, but it's the evidentiary content of this book that, in my mind, separates it from the other Black Dahlia I-know-who-dunnit books.
#1 in the sub-genre thusfar for the non-partisan student of the Black Dahlia murder.
Rating: 
Summary: Black Dahlia Avenger: A Policeman's Nightmare
Review: Don't pick up this book unless you're prepared to read it cover to cover without stopping, it's that good! Steve Hodel, a highly-regarded LAPD detective, began his search for the Black Dahlia killer with not much to guide him but a feeling of dread...and a fascination with the case he could never quite explain. Though never officially closed, the case had been assigned to the 'cold files' for decades. Hodel, of course, had access to the files and decided, fairly early in his search, that the case had gone nowhere because someone higher up didn't want the killer's identity known. To his horror, Hodel discovered he knew the killer very well. If he ever considered closing the files and keeping his findings secret, Hodel steadily resisted the impulse. His courage is remarkable. The book isn't flawless. Hodel sometimes hobbles together various speculations, without considering other alternatives. But his conclusions are sound. And the apparent cover-up within the LAPD is seriously distrubing. Hodel writse very movingly about the victim, and takes great care to dismiss the lies and myths perpetrated about her by newspaper reporters, and former detectives assigned to the case. Particularly disturbing is the 'blame-the-victim' mentality various other writers have adopted towards the victim. Hodel points out that she was not a prostitute, she wasn't a thief,and she wasn't a stripper. She was an innocent young woman who never gave up hoping for one last chance to escape her unhappy childhood, and create her own happy ending.
Rating:
Summary: Investigating a Horrible Crime
Review: From 1963 to 1986 Steve Hodel was a police officer and then detective-supervisor in the LAPD. Most murders are solved by police work: walking the streets, locating and interviewing friends, associates, and witnesses. Information gathered will point to a suspect with a motive (p.5). The facts will provide clues to the solution. A criminal can wear gloves to avoid fingerprints, but cannot hide motives. After this 'Introduction' the author recreates the times and the crimes.
On January 15, 1947 the police were notified of a dead body. Reporters were first on the scene and photographed their scoop. Things are different today (p.12). The body was placed near a sidewalk, not hidden away. Death was from multiple blows to the head and bleeding out. The six newspapers in Los Angeles competed in publicizing this case. The 'Black Dahlia' case was bigger than the Lindbergh kidnapping (p.20). Chapter 3 gives the personal life of the author, who had a cold and distant father (married four times). The author had the knack to read a person's character (p.24). His remote father had a mysterious life; he had no personal friends when he died at 94 (p.34). After his father's death Hodel began the investigation that starts in Chapter 5. His genius father led a complex and unconventional life. Dr. George Hodel specialized in the treatment of venereal disease (p.77). George was a friend of Man Ray, both were interested in Sadism (p.87). Chapter 7, "The Hollywood Scandal" suggests times haven't changed in the Film Capital. Or was Tamar a "pathological liar" (p.95)? Dr. Hodel was acquitted of incest in court but his career had ended (p.99). Chapter 8 tells of Steve's horrible childhood. Was writing this book a good therapy? Was "market research" just a cover name for intelligence operations (p.113)?
Chapter 11 gives the statements of the witnesses who knew Elizabeth Short in the weeks before her death. There were other murders of lone women during the same period (p.152). The newspapers created the hoax of "the real Dahlia killer" in an attempt to solve the crime (pp.186-7). But the real killer struck again (Chapter 14). The transfer of Captain Donahue was "part of an organizational conspiracy within the LAPD to protect" a person (p.199). This was "one of the biggest corruption scandals in the history of the LAPD"! Page 271 tells of J. Edgar Hoover's attempt to access Social Security files. The handwriting analysis in Chapter 22 provides physical evidence comparing the known printing to the unknown samples. Wouldn't the original detectives have access to the printing? (Should other samples have been included?) The murders of other lone women at that time are in Chapter 23.
Chapter 25 tells of crusading Sergeant Charles Stoker and his investigation into an abortion ring protected by the LAPD Gangster Squad. Chapter 26 explains the corruption in 1930s Los Angeles. Millionaire businessmen controlled the California Club and the LA Chamber of Commerce. Page 371 explains the theory of a cover-up. Could the LAPD obstruct justice and allow a psychopathic killer to remain free (Chapter 28)? Did murder of young women in LA really suddenly stop after Dr. George Hodel left California (p.399)? Chapter 33 provides the argument for guilt. I don't think it could convict, and maybe not even indict: "a lack of evidence" (p.450). In the film "Chinatown" John Huston played a powerful landowner and depraved character; his character is discussed in this book. This book has no index. It is well written to be interesting, and provides a history of Los Angeles censored from Hollywood dramas. Beware of artists who flout convention!
Rating:
Summary: Murder and Mayhem
Review: Hodel offers much evidence for his premise that his father was the Black Dahlia murderer. His book reads like a first rate detective novel which takes you back to life in the 1940's. One can't know for certain if his hypothesis is correct, all the principals are dead. But he has given voice to the ghosts of those many women who died horrible deaths to reach out to a future of which they were robbed.
Rating:
Summary: RIDICULOUS!!!!
Review: I don't know where to begin with this book. The author's main contention is that his father, George Hill Hodel, was the black dahlia killer. His two main pieces of evidence are photo's of Elizabeth Short that he supposedly found in his father's photo album after his father's death, and notes that match his father's handwriting that the killer mailed to newspapers and police after the dahlia death.
The photo's he found that he claims are Elizabeth Short are clearly not her, her chin and bridge of her nose completely different. The author doesn't go to any facial recognition experts or use computer software to prove his claim that the photo's found his father's album are elizabeth short. He spends two sentences on that subject saying he thinks they are the same. CBS 48 hours mystery recently exposed this issue, hiring a forensic artist, who using software determined with 85% probability it is not her.
His second piece of evidence is the handwriting of his father and the notes the killer supposedly wrote to the newspapers and police. Assuming the notes are even written by the killer and not mailed in by a hoaxer, the author submits one handwriting expert stating it is the same handwriting. 48 hour mystery hired two handwriting experts, both concluding they are not of the same handwriting. I can imagine how many handwriting experts the author must to went too before he found one that agreed with him.
You would think with 500 pages of material he would have more than two pieces of evidence against the suspect but no he does not. The rest of book is biography hybrid of Father and the rest of his family which has absolutely nothing to do with the black dahlia.
Lastly, you can clearly see the author is completely conflicted about his father. He hates him, for good reason, because his father beat him, molested and raped his sister, abandoned him to his alcoholic mother, and apparently had an affair with author's first wife. But as you read the book, you can see he has admiration for his father, his intellect, often referring to him affectionately. While his father I have no doubt was a bad man, the Black Dahlia killer he was not. The author is clearly a good writer and perhaps he should try crime fiction entirely.
Rating:
Summary: Reads like fiction... coincidence?
Review: I read Hodel's account of the Dahlia -and other murders- as my first foray into any of the legends surrounding the story... so I think my view is pretty objective - I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as other people about the case, so I can comment on the readability of the book itself without worrying too much about Hodel's claims and how they may or may not match up with claims by other authors. With that said, I was impressed by Hodel's ability to make this work accessible to the reader. He doesn't write as I'd expect a former LAPD-man to write... which is to say, he's downright literate. Some of his claims are more convincing than others, but I think he does prove that George Hodel is a riveting character. This book could easily be made into a film with George Hodel as a villain to rival Hannibal Lecter.
Rating:
Summary: BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT
Review: I saw the CBS special Black Dahlia Confidential, bought and read the book in two days, and believe the son has made his case!
Far more circumstantial evidence presented in Hodel's book, than was introduced in the Scott Peterson trial!
The TV summary only scratches the surface of the case. Powerful links are made to other murders that occurred within weeks and a few miles from the original Dahlia crime. The L.A.P.D. in 1947 publicly claimed they believe three of the murders were connected.
A handwriting expert confirms many of the notes were written by Dr. Hodel, and the CBS' and L.A.P.D. independent experts while finding some dissimilarities agree that they "cannot eliminate Dr. Hodel as the writer" and make it clear he could well have written the notes.
Secret documents are revealed showing Dr. Hodel was the prime-suspect and makes admissions to a number of crimes on L.A.P.D. surveillance tapes!
I suspect a lot of the negative reviews posted on Amazon are coming from either people who don't want the case solved, or have some kind of investment,like the reviewer "John Cox"
who has a website where he is trying to promote his own Black Dahlia production.
This book is a classic, and one of the best true-crime investigations ever written. Read the book, study the evidence, and decide for yourself!
L.A. history buff
Rating:
Summary: The Man Ray nonsense shows how shoddy the whole book is
Review: I sought out this book because I had read that the person it named as the Black Dahlia murderer, Dr. George Hodel, was a close friend of Man Ray. My curiosity was piqued because I read everything I can get my hands on about Man Ray, and I had never heard of him being a close friend of any Hollywood physician. After reading the book, I still have seen no evidence that George Hodel was an intimate friend, a serious patron, or anything more than a cordial business acquaintance of Man Ray, despite the author's claims. Nor am I persuaded that George Hodel had anything to do with the Black Dahlia murder. I did come away convinced of the author's willingness to distort, mislead, fabricate, and use any means necessary to convince ignorant and gullible readers of his spurious case. The Man Ray depicted in this book is all but unrecognizable when compared to the actual person whose life has been carefully documented by biographers, art historians, and other researchers. As part of his argument for George Hodel's guilt, the author states flatly that Man Ray was an avowed and sadistic misogynist. This risibly false claim is something akin to claiming Ansel Adams hated Yosemite and encouraged strip-mining it. It proves that the author is counting on the reader knowing virtually nothing. Based on the statements of a former boarder who tells a number of salacious and incriminating but unsupported stories recounted in the book, the author claims that Man Ray left Los Angeles for Paris at end of 1949, just as authorities were investigating George Hodel for the Black Dahlia murder. The well-established and undisputed fact, available in the most cursory biographical overview, is that Man Ray lived quietly in LA until March of 1951. It is clear from his correspondence and the recollections of those who actually knew him that the long-term reason for this move was his lack of financial success and artistic recognition in the US. The proximal cause was the sudden increase in rent on his modest apartment, to $100 (about $750 in today's money) a month, which he felt he could not afford. The latter point alone is sufficient to demonstrate the absurdity of the author's attempt to portray Man Ray as a sinister puppet-master with the power to keep the law at bay. The author tells a similar fib when he says Man Ray took a trip to France at the height of the original 1947 murder investigation. Unless he is saying the height of the investigation was eight months after the murder, this didn't happen either. Likewise, aside from a claim made 50 years after the fact by a woman clinically diagnosed as a pathological liar, there is no evidence that Man Ray took nude photographs of George Hodel's pubescent daughter. Indeed, there is no indication I know of that Man Ray ever took any nude photographs of any pubescent girls (or boys, for that matter), even though it would have been perfectly legal and scarcely objectionable according to the mores of his times. I am also highly doubtful of the author's unsubstantiated claim that Man Ray took the portraits of the author's parents reproduced in the book, except the signed portrait of his mother for which Man Ray no doubt charged a hefty fee. If they are by Man Ray, they are among the worst portraits he ever did, especially the ones of the author's father, George Hodel. Among the author's more sensationalistic claims is that the posing of the murder victim's body was a deliberate imitation of Man Ray's photograph "Minotaure". He calls it a precise match. I see a vague approximation at best: the positions of the arms don't really match; the injuries to the victim's torso are not like the shadows in the photograph, despite the author's untrue assertion that they are; and I guess we're not supposed to notice that the head of the model in the photograph is completely hidden in dark shadow (it's not hard to imagine what a psychopathic killer bent on imitating the photograph would do with that). But there is an element of subjectivity to all this. A more embarrassing question for the author is whether George Hodel could have seen the "Minotaure" photograph prior to the murder. The answer, quite simply, is no. I'll leave it to interested parties to do their own research to confirm this; it's really not that difficult. I think even the most ardent fans of this book might possibly concede that George Hodel would have had to have seen the photograph in order to have copied it when posing a corpse. When I first read this book, my impression of it, even aside from the parts about Man Ray, was that it was a slipshod load of humbug, full of groundless speculation, fallacious reasoning, and absurd conclusions. And, of course, I could see that the two photos being passed off as the victim were of two different women, neither being victim. Since reading the book, I've become interested in the Black Dahlia case and sought out of information about it. As a result, I've caught the author in many more false and misleading statements. Even now I find the author's treatment of Man Ray emblematic of the book as a whole: the outright falsehoods, the misleading statements, the uncritical reliance on the most dubious sources, the failure to check even the most basic facts, the uncanny ability to avoid anything that might detract from the author's case whilst ferreting out the obscurest tidbit that seems to support it, and the undisguised presumption that the reader is both ignorant and stupid. If that sounds like a good read to you, by all means, enjoy it. If not, avoid it.
Rating:
Summary: Hasn't convinced me yet but.....
Review: it's a pretty fascinating read. This is my introduction to the Black Dahlia case. Unfortunately, if I were on a jury and this was the evidence presented, I couldn't say beyond a reasonable doubt, that I would convict the man. There are inconsistencies here and "evidence" that wasn't fully detailed. The most obvious, of course, are the pictures that Dr. Hodel had. In my opinion one of the pics could in all likelihood be her, the other... I don't think so. In any event, if you're not familiar with the case and the subject matter is of interest to you, I think you'll find it a good read. For me, it is only the beginning. I'm intrigued and have so much more to read now...
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